North Korea Calls for Better U.S. Ties

By CHOE SANG-HUN

Published: January 2, 2010

North Korea called on Friday for an end to ''the hostile relationship'' with the United States, issuing a New Year's message that highlighted the reclusive country's attempt to readjust the focus of six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

In an editorial carried by its major state media outlets, North Korea said that its consistent stand was ''to establish a lasting peace system on the Korean Peninsula and make it nuclear-free through dialogue and negotiations.'' The editorial added that ''the fundamental task for ensuring peace and stability'' was ''to put an end to the hostile relationship'' with the United States.

The sequence of easing tension with Washington, establishing a peace regime and then denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula has been shaping up as the North's policy approach before it re-engages in talks about giving up its nuclear weapons, according to officials and analysts in Seoul.

The North's new emphasis on that policy sequence proved to be a stumbling block when President Obama's special envoy on North Korea policy, Stephen W. Bosworth, visited the North's capital, Pyongyang, last month to try to persuade North Korea to return to the six-nation talks about its nuclear program.

The six-party format began in 2003, and the talks focused mainly on dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities. The participants are the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Washington and its allies have provided North Korea with food aid and other assistance while offering incentives such as security guarantees, normalized ties and a peace treaty.

The talks dragged on for years, but the North dismantled only some of its nuclear facilities. A missile test by North Korea in April 2009 led to a swift United Nations condemnation, whereupon the North quit the six-party talks, saying they were ''useless.'' The next month, North Korea conducted its second nuclear test, which led to a United Nations Security Councilresolution and a further tightening of sanctions.

North Korea now insists on separate, bilateral talks with the United States as a way to defuse the hostile relations. During Mr. Bosworth's visit, North Korea acknowledged a possible role for the six-nation talks but did not say when it would resume them.

The 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a formal peace treaty, leaving the peninsula technically in a state of war. North Korea says it has built nuclear weapons as a deterrent to an American invasion, although Washington has said it has no intention to attack.

Although they recognized the need for a permanent peace treaty to replace the truce, officials in Washington and Seoul fear that the North's demand for peace talks may be a ploy to distract the focus on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. After having accumulated enough plutonium for several bombs, North Korea declared last year that it had embarked on an uranium-enrichment program that would give it a second route to atomic weapons.

If peace talks begin, North Korea will likely demand normalized ties, significant food and energy aid and even the pullout of American troops from South Korea as a precondition for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, according to analysts in Seoul.

North Korea traditionally marks New Year's Day with a joint editorial by the country's three major newspapers representing its ruling party, the military and the youth militia. Politicians, scholars and diplomats from the outside world scrutinize the lengthy statement for clues to the regime's policies for the coming year.

This year's editorial softened the typically bellicose attacks against Washington and President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea.

''Unshakable is our stand that we will improve the North-South relations and open the way for national reunification,'' it said, calling on Mr. Lee to honor his predecessors' agreements to send aid to North Korea.

Mr. Lee, a conservative, maintains that no significant aid is possible until he sees progress in the ending of North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

The impoverished North, apparently staggered by the United Nations sanctions that were tightened in May, also stressed the need to improve the people's standard of living by accelerating the development of light industry while calling for efforts to boost foreign trade.